Dassel, MN (KROC-AM News) - State officials are reporting another case of chronic wasting disease.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health says a two-year-old female white tailed deer that recently died on a farm in central Minnesota tested positive for the fatal brain disorder. The deer was born on a farm in Crow Wing County and was moved to a farm in Meeker County in December 2014. Two deer from the Crow Wing County herd earlier tested positive for CWD and the Meeker County case is the third confirmed case of chronic wasting disease involving a captive deer in Minnesota. Both herds are under quarantine.

“This is why it’s important for the Board to maintain accurate animal identification and herd inventories,” said Dr. Paul Anderson, assistant director at the Board of Animal Health. “We were able to look back at five years of recorded deer movements out of the infected Crow Wing County herd, locate herds that received deer from it, and investigate those farms for a CWD infection. This tracing led to the discovery in Meeker County.”

Officials say movement records of the Crow Wing herd show deer were moved to four other farms in Minnesota during a period of five years.

The state is also working to determine the prevalence of the disease in Minnesota’s wild deer herd. A half-dozen deer recently shot by hunters in the Preston area have tested positive for CWD, and the first case in a wild deer was in the Pine Island area in 2010.

 

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